Pyromania
by wild wolf free17
Summary: When the news aired the first time, the kid that nearly torched part of the Boston PD, Dean knew. -Supernatural crossover with the XMen movies-
1. Chapter 1

_Not my characters. Just for fun. _

_Warnings: timeline—anywhen post-"Simon Said" _

_So… I'm not entirely happy with this, but there are some parts I really **really** like. So… dear lord, I say that a lot, don't I? _

* * *

"Hey, Dean?"

Dean looks over. Sam's at the laptop, surfing the 'net, bored out of his mind. They've been cooped up in the motel room for two days, and will be stuck for five more.

Damn curses.

"Yeah?"

Dean's about to climb the walls; he's always hated being in one place for too long.

"You ever think we might have hunted a mutant?"

Dean thinks for a moment, contemplates a dozen answers, and then goes with, "Sometimes."

Sam glances up and Dean doesn't look away in time. He's caught in Sam's gaze, and the fucking curse—"You met a mutant?" Sam asks. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Dean tears his eyes away, glares at the wall. Of course, Sam'd get the telepathy and Dean's stuck with empathy. "Wasn't important," Dean mutters.

But it's too late. Sam heard too much.

"Dean?"

Dean sighs, curses. Nothing to do but talk. He walks over to the bed, throws himself on it, lies on his back. If he stares at the ceiling, avoids looking at Sam, maybe he can get away with not telling everything.

For some reason, the curse—spell—whatever, it only works if they look each other in the eyes or touch. So, across the room, not looking at Sam—things are almost normal.

"Not too long after you left, we were in New York for a few days. Routine haunting, malicious poltergeist, you know, the usual." Dean's voice is light but he knows Sam hears more than he'll probably ever let on. "We separated for the day, Dad visiting the family and me scouting the locale, just to be on the safe side."

Sam shifted in the chair, closed the laptop. Dean didn't need to see him to know the look on his face. Pensive, wary, wondering just what might come out of his brother's mouth.

He has a lifetime of experience, after all.

"I came across these guys whaling on some kid, couldn't be more'n thirteen." Dean stretches, folds his arms behind his head. "Small kid, too, scrawny. He was doing his best, but they guys were all older, bigger. I didn't even think about it." Dean laughs softly. "I jumped right in. Once someone who knew how to fight entered the picture, they broke up, fled. The kid was on the ground, curled up. Torn clothes, dirty brown hair. Thin, underfed, bleeding."

Dean doesn't say that for an instant, he saw Sam, younger Sam, and that he couldn't breathe.

"I knelt beside him," Dean continues. "I started talking, just saying random shit, to let him know I was there. I reached out, lightly touched his shoulder. He jerked, pulled away. I was glad it wasn't winter, you know? He wasn't cold, just beaten." Dean almost glances over but catches himself. "Finally, though, he rolled over, let me help him up. He didn't want a hospital, so I brought him to our motel room. He took a shower, cleaned up, then I looked at his wounds. Just some bruises, a few cuts, a fractured wrist. I asked him if he was hungry and he was, so we went to McDonald's. We didn't talk, just ate. You know how I am with silence—"

Sam laughs a little, mutters, "Yeah."

"—I pulled out my lighter, you remember, the shark one? I flipped the top open and closed, open and closed. I noticed that in between bites, his gaze kept darting to the lighter, and then I realized—he wasn't looking at it. He was watching the flame.

"After he finished, I had no clue what to do. Bring him back to the room, let him sleep safely for a while, take him shopping for clothes, turn him out on the street… but he looked up at me, face bruised and tired, and told me thank you. Said he'd be fine now."

Sam shifts again. Dean knows he wants to speak but is hesitant because it might close Dean down.

"Since he'd been staring at my lighter, I gave it to him. He looked at it, then up at me, and flicked the top. The flame danced for a moment, then it leapt to the palm of his other hand. His eyes never left mine, like he was daring me to prove myself to be like those guys." Dean chuckles. "But I just said, 'Cool.'"

Dean sits up and glances toward Sam but avoids his eyes. "So, yeah, I've thought about it. That 'shifter back in St. Louis? But even if he was a mutant, he was still crazy, still a threat."

Dean can see Sam's nod and knows what question is coming. "Do you wonder if I'm a mutant? If Andy, Max, Rosie—we're all just mutants?"

Dean flops back onto the bed. "Of course I have, Sammy. But it doesn't matter."

Sam stands and walks over to the other bed, sinks down into it. "So, if there's a war—and there's gonna be one, you know it, Dean—which side will you be on?"

Staring at the ceiling, Dean doesn't respond. It'd be too chick-flicky to say what he thinks—that whichever side Sam is on, Dean's right there with him.

So when Dean speaks, it's to do what he knows Sam knew he would do. "You sure we have a week of this crap?"

Sam's laughter is soft. Without looking, Dean knows his eyes are closed, that he's about to drift off. "Yeah," Sam answers.

Dean turns toward his little brother and smiles.

It doesn't matter, whatever comes, whatever happens. A week of telepathy and empathy—that witch thought to break them, but Dean knows it's only making them stronger.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title**: Pyromania

**Fandom**: "Supernatural"/_X-Men_ movie 'verse crossover

**Disclaimer**: Not my characters. Just for fun.

**Warnings**: spoilers for seasons 1&2 of "Supernatural" and X3; AU for "Supernatural" sometime before "Croatoan"

**Pairings**: none

**Rating**: PG13

**Wordcount**: 1410

**Point of view**: third

**Notes**: The timelines don't really mesh between chapters. So, I'm pulling rank and saying not to worry about it.

* * *

_You should have let them kill me._

_I'm sorry._

-

When the news aired the first time, the kid that nearly torched part of the Boston PD, Dean knew. It made front pages across the country, the attack on the school that culminated in an upscale Boston neighborhood and a boy that could burn the world.

But there was a poltergeist, then a vengeful spirit, and then a black dog that almost eviscerated Sam, so 'Pyro,' as he apparently called himself, was wiped clean from Dean's mind.

Sam's powers had grown in leaps and bounds. He'd been approached by a man(mutant) named Charles Xavier, asked if he'd join the X-Men, but Sam said no. He never told Dean what the professor whispered mind-to-mind, but he didn't smile in the days after. Not for weeks.

The first time Dean controlled fire he was thirty-three, way too old to develop a power. And fire? Not cool. Not cool at _all_. But he didn't pause, just told the blaze to calm the fuck down because Sam was still somewhere in the house. He _felt_ the fire, like it was somewhere in his mind and it—_listened_. It collapsed in on itself, leaving only smoke in its wake.

"It isn't possible," Dean told Sam, barely staying on his feet.

"No, it isn't," Sam answered, catching Dean when he passed out.

So, Sam had premonitions, telepathy, and telekinesis. Dean could boss fire around.

Honestly, it just didn't seem fair.

But like with Sam's so called 'gifts,' they worked it into their gig. They no longer had to worry about gasoline or matches or a lighter. Dean could form an inferno with a thought, have it burn just long and hot enough, then put it out.

Xavier approached them again, and again they turned him down.

This time he spoke to Dean's mind_. If your brother dies before you, Mr. Winchester_, Xavier asked, _what will you do?_  
Around them, the room's temperature rose. Dean didn't speak aloud but all three of them heard his answer.

"He told me I was a Class Four," Sam said a few days later. "The first time we spoke." Sam laughed a little, not mirthful at all. "That's the same level as _Magneto_, Dean."

"It's alright, Sammy," Dean responded, praying to a god he gave up on years before that he didn't lie.

-

Fire ravishes and consumes, never sated, never tiring. And it listened to Dean, any fire he came across.

Watching the news reports about Magneto and his Brotherhood, about Mystique, about the 'cure' that led only to madness—Dean wondered who was right and who was wrong and if there even _was_ a 'good' side anymore.

-

When Xavier died, every mutant in the world felt it.

"She's a Class Five," Sam whispered in horror. "Dean, she could kill us all."

Dean closed his eyes and swore, deep in his soul, that 'she' would get nowhere near his little brother.

So when the battle at Alcatraz happened, Sam was in Maine. Dean kept him wrapped up in a hunt, giving him no time to consider what was happening.

But then Sam cried out, dropping to his knees, and _keened_. Dean fell beside him, helpless to end his pain, only able to hold him and whisper baseless promises.

"She's gone," Sam muttered, on the edge of consciousness. "Dean, she's gone."

And finally Sam passed out, slept for almost a week. Dean watched his vital signs and the news, wondered how the world sank into such a state.

When Sam woke, he told Dean, "I'm the strongest," voice filled with fear. "_Me_, Dean. But that cure—it won't last forever. For the powerful ones, it's already fading."

Dean looked into his baby brother's terrified eyes and said, "I'm not afraid of you , Sammy. I never have been. I never will be."

And Sammy smiled, comforted.

-

The months after Alcatraz were full of riots and fear, and a war almost broke out, but the president held the country together. And finally it seemed like maybe everything would be fine.

The mutants who'd been on Magneto's side had mostly been 'cured,' but it was fading. A few lashed out when their powers returned and were quickly rounded up.

Magneto himself had vanished but none doubted he'd return. Mystique, too, was long gone. Most of Magneto's lieutenants had died at Alcatraz, but one—Pyro—had been pulled out, unconscious but unhurt, and given to the military. Tried as a minor—he was barely seventeen—he was given a bracelet filled with Leech's blood that could never come off.

Dean learned all of it from hacking into every government database. Sam didn't need to read his mind to know. And Sam didn't try to convince him not to go after Pyro.

"I know where he is," Sam said. "I can feel him.

"You're not coming with me," Dean replied and Sam raised an eyebrow.

"Uh, yeah, I am."

"Sammy," Dean explained, "I don't want you anywhere near that cure."

"Dean," Sam said, standing up and walking over to his brother. "Before they even raise the gun, I'll know what they're doing. If you want to get that kid, you're taking me with you."  
"What did Xavier tell you, Sam?" Dean asked, studying his brother's face. "That first time he came to us?"

Sam licked his lips, looked away. "He gave me a warning," Sam answered softly. "Power, responsibility. How I owed the world."

Dean nodded. "He told me the same."

With a shared smile, they started planning.

-

It was a quick battle and there were no casualties. Sam knocked out the prison's power and murmured to Dean's mind where they kept Pyro. Dean ghosted through the halls, using years of training and experience; Sam held all the guards in a gentle grip, allowing them to breathe and nothing else.

When the news broke hours later, America trembled. All the powerful mutants were meant to be accounted for, but everyone was at a loss. Some thought that Pyro's escape proved Magneto had returned; others, that it was a declaration of war. The president turned to the X-Men, but they had no explanation.

Pyro's bracelet, the only thing that kept his inferno leashed, was found a few feet away from the main doors of the prison.

-

Pyro—_John, John Allerdyce_—shivered in the motel bed, curled in on himself. Sam lounged on the other bed and Dean sat in the chair. They didn't talk; they didn't need to. Hadn't needed to in a long time.

Dean studied the kid; he didn't look like one of the most dangerous mutants in the world. Didn't look like much more than a wounded boy. That wounded boy Dean had helped out so long before.

Dean wondered where that shark lighter had gotten to.

John's eyes flicked from one to the other. "What d'ya want with me?" he asked, voice hoarse and barely there.

"You don't belong in jail, kid," Dean replied.

"I killed people." John's voice filled with self-loathing. "Good people."

"You regret it," Sam responded, compassionate and gentle. "You weren't being helped in there, so we got you out."

John scoffed, seeming to find some of that attitude that made him infamous from one ocean to the other. "The hell are you people?"

Dean and Sam shared a smirk. "We're just people, kid," Dean said. "We just like helpin' others."

John bit his lip, some of his bravado fading. "What're you gonna do with me?"

Sam sat up, eyes sincere. "Do you still want to hurt humanity, John?" he asked.

The kid shook his head. "I just wanna fade into the background, forget Alcatraz."

Dean looked over at Sam, who met his gaze. "We can help there, John," Sam said, turning back to him.

-

Bobby helped them, getting John across the Atlantic. He could melt into the scores of people in Europe with ease. "Take care, kid," Dean told him. "Don't ever be afraid to call."

"Thanks again," John said. "That's twice now I owe you my life."

Dean grinned at him. "Don't mention it. Just stay outta trouble."

John nodded. "I'll try."

-

"He'll be fine, Dean," Sam said as they drove west, away from John's plane flying over the Atlantic. "You've done good with him."

Dean shrugged. "Just felt responsible for the kid, you know?"

Sam chuckled, giving Dean one of those _you're just too cute for words_ looks Dean couldn't stand. "Yeah," he said. "I know."


End file.
